


Forget

by Enkindle



Category: Mortal Instruments Series - Cassandra Clare
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-27
Updated: 2013-08-27
Packaged: 2017-12-24 19:22:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/943716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Enkindle/pseuds/Enkindle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One day, you'll write another letter, and it won't be for me. One day, I'll be gone, and you'll forget.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Forget

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rayenbow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rayenbow/gifts).



> For Raye, who wasn't in enough pain because of these two already.

_It started with a letter._

 

_The contents were anything but trivial. They shook the very foundations of her, her heart, everything that made her wild; it tamed her. It brought her to a sense of reality that made her heart send tremors from the inside out. It rocked her like an earthquake. The words echoed in her mind, over and over again, and every single day brought her closer to the end. Every single day brought her closer to his signature, to those last few syllables that meant the end of something she considered endless. She had no illusions of being immortal herself. She was no fool. Despite her youth, she was very intelligent, and she could pick up on what he was feeling most of the time. Call it a lover's intution, whatever you will, but it came down to this - he wouldn't change her for the world, and she knew. She knew that he might not ever forgive her if she altered herself. She also knew that eventually, time heals everything, and that long after she was gone he would find something new, something that brought life to him like she did. She swallowed the pain of the realization as best she could, but it stung, and every day brought her nearer to a time when she would no longer exist, and he would no longer remember._

* * *

He had always known she would die young. All Shadowhunters did. There was little choice for them; they lived and died by battle. It was their duty to protect the world. But he had never imagined that he would lose her  _so_ quickly. She wasn't even eighteen yet. And for that, he resented the world. Magnus Bane was not a man given to spouting fury and vengeance, but watching her robbed of so much so early made blue electric veins flare and crackle and snap. What he unleashed on the world was a sight no one had yet seen, and one no one would soon forget. It was Jonathan Christopher Morgenstern's doing, and he did indeed see the world burn, but it was not the world he expected - and it was not the outcome he had hoped for. Ah, but that was so many years ago, now. Two centuries had passed. His age had doubled, the world had changed dozens of times over, but he remained the same. It had been a long and lonely road. But some nights, like tonight, he would have a few peaceful moments to reflect on his life and the things that had shaped it.

 

He gathered up his trunk and headed, by portal of course, to the Bone City. Few places in the world were left so untouched as this, and he had a specific spot he needed to visit. upon arrival, he set up a blanket on which to sit, and lay the chest gently on the ground. Blue sparks flew from his fingers as they passed over the locks, the secrets they guarded deep and endless, full of all the things he missed. Full of all the things that had left him behind. Memories, promises kept and promises broken, loves lost and time untouched. A sad smile played over his lips as his fingertips brushed the spine of a tattered, yellowing sketchbook. It was so rare to see something crafted with wire binding and careful stitches of leather around a cover anymore, the book itself was something to be treasured. But it was what waited within that he wanted. He opened it gingerly, taking all the care with it that he would with a newly hatched fledgling, with a butterfly still drying its wings after emergence from its chrysalis. He was met with none other than his own eyes, in vibrant hues and shades, closer than he ever cared to look at them. Studied to an art, reflected perfectly back at him, as if he were looking into a mirror. Minus one particularly important detail - they no longer held the same life as they had in the moments when the eyes looking back at him were captured.

 

A few more pages, he knew, and he would find it. He had tucked it in here specifically, so it would be kept as close to the heart of him as he could bear it to be. Blank pages had been cut in the middle, fashioning a small box which contained a ring he never had the opportunity to give. Acting as the lid to some secret box was the letter, the one he'd written. Below the ring, beyond more blank pages, at the very end of the sketchbook... There was something he had never been able to bear looking at. He hadn't touched it. It was folded neatly, secured with a simple blue ribbon now greyed with age. His name was written just below the centered bow, with a small, artistic heart dangling from the end of the 's'. He read his own letter first. Today, he would have to be strong.

 

73,143 days without her. He had made it this far by whatever grace had given him the strength to continue, but it was time. He hadn't forgotten, would never forget, but he had promised her that he would read it one day. She apologized so profusely for having read what she was never meant to see, but begged that he wouldn't read hers yet. It irritated him mildly at the time, but he understood, and his love for her and trust in her won out. She had looked him in the eyes, pleadingly, earnestly insisting that he promise he wouldn't read it until he needed it most, but that he would always read it after he reached that point. Her cheeks were splotched and wet and raw from crying, and he had watched her heart break and mend itself all in a few short moments. She had looked at him, and in her desperation and her heartache, she had cried, _"One day, you'll write another letter, and it won't be for me. One day, I'll be gone, and you'll forget."_ He couldn't stand it. He had made the promise. He intended, now, to keep it. Nervously, his fingers pulled the ribbon free, and he opened the letter. He drew a deep breath, and looked up to the marker where he knew she would rest eternally. "I could never forget, my dear," he murmured. As he willed himself to unfold the fragile paper and undertake the reading of its contained message, he whispered one last time, "I promise."

He never wrote another letter.


End file.
